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| Otalia - Guiding Light | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 29 2009, 06:54 PM (21,231 Views) | |
| cagey | Sep 3 2009, 01:49 AM Post #916 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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Was I present at this discussion? Not to belabor the points but of course soaps are an art form. They are created by people working in media we generally identify as the arts: writing, directing, acting, designing. Their purpose is to engage the viewer emotionally. The art they produce is received by it's audience in a highly personal and individual way, because it is only art if someone else responds to it. You may not respond well to it. We can certainly note that the writing in a soap is generally repetitive, the acting by in large stiff, the direction and design in this particular soap non-existant but at that point, what we are engaging in is art *criticism*. We could also discuss the commodification of art, but that has been going on as long as artists have been selling their efforts in order to eat. The market place can and always has dictated what kind of artistic expression is considered worthy, it has dictated what may or may not be presented. The challenge of the artist has always been to create her art while working within those social constraints. And what the market determines to be successful does not always match one's own aesthetics. Unfortunately, what we are looking at, with GL in it's twilight is not *a work of art*. <small gasp> It is unfinished. Not to compare Ellen Wheeler to Michelangelo, or Otalia to an unfinished masterpiece but we really can't effective determine what the story was going to be, or should have gone because it is not going anywhere. We cannot know if she refused to let the story go where it *should have* gone; we don't really know where the story was going. Much as we would like to look at a block of marble that Michelangelo took a few whacks at and call it art just because a known artist was doing the whacking, but it could have been something he didn't particularly think was going anywhere, or never got around to finishing: whatever else it might be - and it could be fabulously aesthetically - it is not a work of art. The best we can do is the forensics - determine exactly at what point the decision was made to truncate *all* the stories, bring back the old characters for a bow and tie a bow on everything. It is important to remember that Otalia does not exist on it's own. It could never be a work of art standing on it's own. It is embedded in the larger soap and has to be seen in that context to understand it. Otherwise you are just looking at Adam's finger and missing the rest of the Sistine Chapel. Guiding Light as Sistine Chapel, has my analogy no shame? There is a reason to worry about Venice, I think, but it is not CC's presence in the production team. I worry more that the writing of this series has been way too much fun for some underemployed creative people who, by having set their show in Venice, CA, will not be able to resist taking slaps at the entertainment industry and the caricatures of lesbians who work in and around that industry. It runs the risk of being to smart, too po-mo and superficial for it's own good. CC's presence, with her long experience in soaps, might be very good; she could exert a strong editorial force which is really what train wrecks like TLW obviously lacked. |
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| solitasolano | Sep 3 2009, 02:12 AM Post #917 |
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Understatement. This just in from the editor and director of the film I’m working on. It’s a comedy, an 40ish couples adult romantic comedy. It is mild in content, no swearing, nothing offensive (they cut the gay White Swallow resort party out. The name was as bad as it got.) The MPAA, the ratings board, doesn’t want to give it a PG rating because of 3 things; two parts of the couples group yoga scene where the raters I guess went bonkers on the positions (remember it’s a comedy), and the use of the word “twatting” used to make a joke about crazed twitterers (do we know any of these folks ?) . We have to be finished in 3 weeks. The question is, who will win out, a couple of individuals who must be related to EW and have imaginary common demominator audiences in their heads, or the filmmakers who are appealing. The notion that “everyone else has gone home” seems to have escaped showrunners, TPTB, and censorers everywhere. It’s not just daytime soaps which are pet projects of religious showrunners which limit their own productions. It’s really too bad there is so much censorship (lesbian kisses anybody just for starters?). Someday one of these webseries is really going to take off. Right now, because their focus audiences are so narrow, they won’t have to worry about the audience in “their” heads. Good luck to the independents. |
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| ekny | Sep 3 2009, 02:20 AM Post #918 |
In love with a prisoner
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What I said. I will confine myself to only adding: 1) any show that's canceled is 'unfinished'; 2) this show *will* be ended, done--finished--in 2 weeks, but that's not the distinction you (or I) are talking about here, which is 3) that soaps are by definition *never* finished. And that's a problem, imo. Forensics and after-the-fact analysis don't address the central problem of *this* storyline, which is that for a romance, there are places it would *naturally* go--if it were straight. And I respectfully disagree with the idea that soaps are any kind of art form. There were artistic *moments*, sure. There were well-written scenes. But conceptually; in terms of how they're executed... sheesh, what a huge mishmash. Not every other 'art-form' exists solely to string along its audience and sell product. That's a component of the marketplace for media, in general. But not like this, not endlessly, pointlessly, with no way to form a consistent reading over the years because of arbitrary changes in character, plot, story. That's just like little kids making up stuff. It's a form of storytelling, yes. Beyond that, I have seen nothing to convince me it's anything more. |
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| cagey | Sep 3 2009, 04:22 AM Post #919 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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Well you certainly have your supporters for that point of view. There are lots of academics arguing both ways.
(http://mac10.umc.pitt.edu/u/FMPro?-db=ustory&-lay=a&-format=d.html&storyid=4126&-Find) Soap Operas may never be finished but story lines progress to conclusions. I don't disagree that this story line could have gone all sorts of places heterosexual romances on soaps go. It already went to a classic: one of our heroines is pregnant as a result of a one-night stand with the wrong person. I am not sure that if the story did play out according to standard soap protocol it would have been particularly rewarding from the point of view of lesbians. There would have been ridiculous barriers chucked in their way; they would leap to conclusions that only made matters worse, seek comfort or support from the absolutely wrong person, they would be happy for about two episodes before the angst began again, etc. etc. These are the places soap romances *naturally* go to. In other words, the characters would behave in increasingly infantile ways. Would have physical affection between the two characters made this palatable as their fate? It was telling that in one of those interviews back there Ellen Wheeler said pretty much that Bill and Lizzie were the only couple that was going to get to be happy all summer. That speaks to how the genre, the operatic art form works. Twatting? solitasolano For real? I guess Bad Girls just lost it's PG rating. The mind of a censor must be a very empty place. |
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| solitasolano | Sep 3 2009, 05:28 AM Post #920 |
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Please forgive me if I excuse myself from the art talk...valid points each, but I have soap opera plotlines to talk discuss. Today on GL, the OrangeOne and Shayne “come out” as the new parents of little Henry as Shayne is his biological father and that made Mallet spilt, or something like that. (I don’t wan to know the details, if you know what I mean. I’m still trying to get my head around the heart transplant allegory.) Biological grandparents Josh and Reva are overflowing with joy. Non-biological family members, the Coopers, are a tad less jolly when informed. Actually Fr**k makes a snide remark comment about S being the father which of course turns out to be correct. OrangeOne and Shayne say daddy Mallet split because he thought Henry should have just one mother and father. ANVILLLLLLLLLLLL MUCHHHHHHH. That’s why I bored you all with the details. As I’m watching this, I realize soap opera show runners are just chuckling to themselves because they are so bold to soon be presenting their alternative parental set up; 2 mommies and a daddy….I think I just took drugs. ![]() ETA: whoops, speculation, of course.
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| ekny | Sep 3 2009, 06:40 AM Post #921 |
In love with a prisoner
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Indeed.My only footnote at this rather late moment at night is to say my objections are not inherently elitist, which is, I think, implied in the article you point to with words like 'cognoscenti' etc. My problem with it is not that it's populist. Good lord. My problem with it is that it's *bad*. I've already pointed out how I understand it's essentially a type of formalism: like bonsai-pruning; bullfighting; kabuki. The audience watches minuscule, stylized moves no one outside the form could possibly appreciate for nuances that are meaningless to outsiders: no one cares who won the bullfight, they argue about whether matador A's move with the cape was really as impressive as matador B's last-minute escape from death. I just don't think it's art. It can't be, by definition, and that's where we're differing, I think. It's proto-art. But it's not art.
you go! I forgot to add a Deathbed Scene with Liv & Phillip (and possibly Emma) to my list of predictions. Or at least a Solemn Talk. Probably more than one if the town's gonna have a death & a marriage to close the show on. (Unless it's James. Which would be fine by me.)
Ooh girl I just love your Anvilllll, it's fabulous! (oops--no... wait, no censors here, I can say that. Can't I?) |
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| cagey | Sep 3 2009, 07:19 AM Post #922 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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Gee the anvil I saw falling was aiming right at Frank. He was looking like he was adding up the score and saw himself as Mallet. His next step was to call Mallet. Maybe there's another opening with the Agency in Germany. ![]() Looks to me like James will be offering bone marrow before the week is out to save Philip. There are lots of *dramatic* possibilities with Philip telling Olivia, but I'm not sure we'll see it...cause that would be dramatic. I am not implying that you, salt of the earth ek, are an elitist. But the arguments do tend to draw lines between elite and popular, female vs male, high vs low. And it all comes back to the great What is Art question. There are not enough drugs on the planet to get me to a state of being able to answer that question. |
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| abzug | Sep 3 2009, 12:40 PM Post #923 |
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In love with a prisoner
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This reminds me of the comments I got back on my senior thesis in college. I had written about five autobiographies written in the same 10-yr period by women of the same ethnic group. Some of the memoirs were more literary than others, but I was looking at all of them as historical artifacts as well as literary texts. Anyway, one of the readers expressed a concern that some of the texts "couldn't bear the weight of the analysis" which is kind of another way of saying that they weren't art, or at least not art enough to do literary analysis on food imagery (to pick one example at random). I think the problem with the soap we're discussing is not whether it's "art" or not, because that is a word with many value judgments implied, but whether it can bear the weight of the analysis we're interested in doing. For instance, let's say I was really interested in tracing the psychological evolution of soap characters. One might argue that the soap couldn't bear the weight of this analysis, since the soap isn't interested in psychological consistency and growth, so much as it's interested in plot. Similarly, imagery like mirrors or food etc might disintegrate if we look at them too closely. We can say "Hey, coffee represents sex! So does baking cookies!" but to try to do more than that might not actually reveal more than that. But that doesn't mean soaps can't be analyzed in other ways, where they could very easily bear the weight of the analysis. For instance, the intersection of art and commerce, or the ways audiences emotionally relate to stories and characters they watch in their livingrooms, or the ways soaps reflect female fantasies about men and romance. Or even the manner in which a conservative genre addresses hot-button or difficult life issues (cancer, rape, coming out etc). These are more socio-cultural topics, rather than more literary topics, but they are legitimate lines of inquiry. |
Visit the Bad Girls Annex!
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| solitasolano | Sep 3 2009, 02:50 PM Post #924 |
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A dyke can hope, but I think that will turn out to be just a dream. btw, marymartin and traveller, good to see you around. mm I think you commented two months ago that the writing stunk since April for Otalia. Don't think anyone disagrees with you by now. I don't. I might not be able to play today until late. Watch away. |
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| ekny | Sep 3 2009, 03:48 PM Post #925 |
In love with a prisoner
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Great & very thoughtful post, Abzug, thanks for that. ITA. With it all. (I don't have a problem with the idea that discussing art implies value judgments; there's no way to discuss it that does not.) And yes, obviously there are ways to discuss and analyze the show that are useful, depending on your interests and the angle you're looking from. Those you suggest all make perfectly good sense: the tent of the socio-cultural is where soaps' focus and priorities mainly lie anyway, seems to me. |
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| LarkCall | Sep 3 2009, 04:20 PM Post #926 |
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Down the Block
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Hello Otalia Dissectors- I have been lurking around for weeks reading your very interesting, very bright and sometimes very funny commentary on the Otalia storyline. I have also been watching (how could I not?) the Otalia soap and of course like you I am waiting to see the big moment when our girls finally get down to business. I haven't watched a soap since college (which for me was eons and eons ago--Another World-was the soap)-but I had to turn it on after reading all about it here. Here's what I think: I think that this Otalia storyline has probably given housewives in Iowa something to think about. In my opinion every woman could be a lesbian given the right circumstances and Otalia shows that very well. I think it's a good presentation for the demographic that this soap is intended for and just might open a mind or heart to the possibilities that exist out there... |
| What's Normal? | |
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| solitasolano | Sep 3 2009, 05:14 PM Post #927 |
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Variation on a theme threshold moment. Rather differ nuance I would say. Please someone else disect as I'm cheatin here at work. LarkCall, good to see ya, join the fun. One heart and mind in Iowa (although Iowa is doing rather well at the moment for equality so I would vote for Oklahoma or Nebraska) is always good. Unfortunately in the RL there were 5 million hearts and minds in California who agree with the GL story tellers, two women in love and all that means, not so good. |
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| ekny | Sep 3 2009, 05:15 PM Post #928 |
In love with a prisoner
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Still only part 2 of today's ep up... anyone provide a link to part1, please?? Hey, I agree LarkCall (and hiya! so nice to see people popping in again, yay)... imo that was its only goal, really, & for those few people it was aimed at... it perhaps did achieve what it was originally intended to. For the rest of us... kinda not so much. -----on to the deeply trivial--- So... One, finally saw the Emmy tribute--the version on what's-his-name's site was actually quite different. I found it of note that people 'complained' about how short the tribute was in the Emmys, but from what I could see it actually included MORE Otalia material than the 'rescued' material from his site. Michael whosis. So people's sense of being Wronged... in some cases feels kinda questionable. Second: finally also saw the hand-move to JL, which I can see, if I were that kind of fan, why it'd be if not exciting, at least sweet & an indication of good character. It's actually a funny move to have made, like she didn't want to change how she was positioned for the camera, I'm sure they were blocked very carefully. Anyone else it would have looked awkward as hell & weird but she's so physically deft it was just like watching a surgeon pass a football or something. Again, the bitching about how 'fast' the tribute was, how fast the camera panned over the cast, seemed like... what did people expect? It's an awards show, c'mon. And am very amused that CC came up with a line on twitter for her voice sounding so Cali & thin. A number of lines, actually: she's a NY gal, she'd been screaming, she likes to try on different voices cuz that's what actors do, etcetc. Pretty sensitive to that kind of feedback, it would seem. Or should I say attuned. I actually think part of what's going on is they simply sped up the clip a small amount to fit it into the time-slot. Also, the sound-quality *changes* midway through that clip: her voice slows & lowers, she's answering more carefully, but also, there was some tweaking in there. I bet Solitasolano would know instantly. But I'm almost sure it was tweaked. It's a simple enough thing to do, any large radio station has the hardware; live television certainly has it. What's the name, lemme think... a magneto-optical disc-recorder with voice compression, basically, they call them 'cashboxes' in radio? because you can smoosh out dead air-space & of course squeeze in more commercials. The one thing she did say in the interview that struck me was that we wanted to be 'represented', I think was the word she used. (Had to fast-forward through the VW thing, ugh. I care why? ...I can see why the Ellen-thing bugged people but then--hey, she didn't have to attend, did she? (Was she presenting or something?--never mind, sorry, Idon'tcare.) Point is, she IS the only out lesbian in the audience, so yes, they're going to pan to her. I found myself wondering if they did this with prominent people of color when news coverage was changing back in the day, but coverage itself was so different then it's probably not the right question. I mean I'm sure there was a point where every time someone in Manhattan wanted a quote from a prominent preacher there were black people who were like: effin' Al Sharpton, AGAIN? :D) |
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| cagey | Sep 3 2009, 05:32 PM Post #929 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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LarkCall - I love the thought of lines of Iowa matrons forming at the county clerks office to marry each other after the awesome effect of watching Otalia. That's your personal meets political ![]() Wow ek - I haven't bothered to watch the Emmy stuff, so I'm not following half of what you said. Suppose I will have to buckle down and do my duty in watching it. There is something about celebrity exhibitions - exhibitions of celebrities and exhibitions by celebrities that just flies way over my head. |
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| solitasolano | Sep 3 2009, 05:32 PM Post #930 |
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part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE20pxc1Shg part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aar_n_LOvo&feature=channel Ellen was there bec she was up for Emmy for best talk show hostess....which she has won before. Are you talking about the CC red carpet interview...where she DID sound likek a Valley Girl for a tad? Hey I like good actors and actresses, they can do anything they want with their voices as far as I'm concerned...that's one of the things they have to offer. Sound quality wise, I'm assuming you all are listening to a YT version....OMG the compression on YT. Different clips and uploads are all over the place with quality. Should I listen again and comment. Rather read comments about thresholds and arm chucks from GMF and how big Emma has gotten in the last several months.
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?) . We have to be finished in 3 weeks. The question is, who will win out, a couple of individuals who must be related to EW and have imaginary common demominator audiences in their heads, or the filmmakers who are appealing. The notion that “everyone else has gone home” seems to have escaped showrunners, TPTB, and censorers everywhere. It’s not just daytime soaps which are pet projects of religious showrunners which limit their own productions. It’s really too bad there is so much censorship (lesbian kisses anybody just for starters?). Someday one of these webseries is really going to take off. Right now, because their focus audiences are so narrow, they won’t have to worry about the audience in “their” heads. Good luck to the independents.

Indeed.

8:45 AM Jul 11